profitable as it should be, good grass for summer and winter grazing is indispensable. Yearlings handled as above stated should be put on rich pas ture, (wild or cultivated,) and on such kept during the grazing season, viz: on the prairie from May to 15th or 20th of September, and on cultivated grass to the first of November. At the latter date they should go into their winter pasture. When winter sets in, which is about the 15th of December, in this portion of the state, begin to feed in troughs, with half peck of crushed corn to each head per day, and gradually increase to one peck per day. If it is impracticable to feed the corn in the above manner, it may be advantageously fed on the grass, from the shock, in like proportion. A sufficient number of hogs should be put after the cattle to take up the offal. It will take 20 bushels of corn per head second winter, which, put at 20 cents per bushel, will give $4 in grain per head for second winter. Yearlings thus managed will, on 1st of May, when they are two years old, weigh from 1,000 to 1,100 pounds, gross. The two year old cattle should be turned to grass 1st of May, and kept on good pastures until the 20th of October, at which time they are ready for stall feeding, and should be put to corn on the grass, with one-fourth of a bushel to the head, per day, for one and a half months, which will bring the 1st of December. At this time they should go into the feed lot, and have all the corn they will eat until the 1st of May, which will be a half bushel per head per day. This will give 85 bushels per head for stall feeding, which, at 20 cents per bushel, will give $17 per head for the third winter. Each steer thus fed will fatten one hog or winter two well-thus paying the expense of feeding. The system above given for handling cattle will afford a sufficient amount of offal for hogs to pay all expenses for labor in winter feeding, from the time of weaning until ready for the butcher. Cattle fed as above will be ready for market the 1st of May, but should be well grazed until the 15th or 20th of June, which is the most profitable time for selling, taking one season with another. At this time they should average about 1,400 pounds each, gross. It will cost to produce a steer for market, on the above plan, as follows: Grass, from 1st May to 15th June, time of selling, 200 Making the entire cost of raising and fattening,.. $40 00 Deduct cost,...... And you have, for profit,...... ..... $50 75 40.00 $10 75 It will thus be seen, that by the above system it will cost $40 per head to grow and prepare a steer for the butcher, or $2 75 per hundred, which gives 20 cents for corn on the farm, and pays one dollar per month for grazing, and leaves $10 75 profit. It will be seen that cattle handled as above go into market at three years old instead of four years, as under the common method of handling cattle, and adding to the profit one year's keep. This is no small item, and, in the aggregate, a great gain to growers. Under the system generally pursued by our farmers in raising and managing cattle, I maintain that it costs three dollars per hundred to produce every pound of beef that is fed in the state,. and that no farmer who does not fat his own cattle, but sells, to be fed by others, receives a fair remuneration for food fed in an ordinary manner in which cattle are handled in Illinois. By examining the patent office reports, it will be found that it costs about $20. in winter provender to feed a steer, so as to be ready for the stall feeder at four years old. Now, add to this three summers' gra-zing, at $6 per season, (it is worth this sum, whether obtained. from the prairie or from cultivated lands, for it produces it in beef,) and it will give $18 per head. Add to this $17 for stall feeding, and we have $55, the cost of the production of 1,450 pounds of gross beef. (A lot of cattle handled in the ordinary manner will oftener fall under 1,450 than come up to it.) Placing the beef at $3 50 per hundred, gross, and we have $50 75, the value of the beef. Take this from the cost of production, and there is a loss of $4 25 to the producer, under this common system, whilst there is a profit of $10 75 under the system here recommended. From the best information I can obtain, there are one hundred thousand beef cattle taken to market from Illinois annually, at a loss, in grain and grass, of $4 25 per head. Thus we lose the large sum of four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars under our present system of raising, managing and feeding cattle, when, under a different system, we should have a profit, on the one hundred thousand cattle, of one million of dollars-saving to the growers of cattle four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and giving an aggregate profit of one million. The plan suggested would increase the wealth of the state, annually, one million four hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and open up a home market for her surplus corn which often lies rotting in the pens of the owners, for the want of a paying market. N. B. For several years past I have provided protection for my outdoor stock in the following manner, and am well satisfied with the result: Take 100 rails, or poles, 10 feet long, to some eligible place; take 3 forks, 4 feet long, made from the fork of a limb, from which the rails or poles are made set them two feet in the ground, and 14 feet apart; place a pole, 30 feet long, in the forks; then, with a spade, set the rails or poles one foot in the ground, one on either side, alternately, at an angle of 45 deg., and you will have a rail or pole rack, 30 feet long, which will hold five or six wagon loads of hay or straw. This rack I fill with hay while cutting my grass, or with straw while threshing my grain. Five racks will give good protection to one hundred head of growing stock, during the whole winter, and more food than they will consume, when managed as above. JAS. N. BROWN.. ON THE REARING AND MANAGING OF CATTLE ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS. SECOND PREMIUM. BY CHARLES W. MURTFELDT. In the few pages which I shall submit to the state agricultural society on this subject, I shall not attempt to reason any one into the belief that the rearing and managing of cattle in Illinois, is of vast importance-that it is equal to, if not superior to any other interest of our state-but I will take it for granted, that it is admitted that, in most sections, the raising of grain and of cattle ought to go together; and but few of our race will do with bread only, when they can have the meat also. Neither shall I attempt to show in these lines whether it be better to raise beef than pork; but in passing will call attention to the use of the steer for draft, before he is fitted for the shambles, and the importance of the dairy product, which enters so largely into the aggregate of our daily food. I propose to take the two distinct heads, then, in the order in which they are given. First then, the rearing of cattle; and I hope to be permitted to state, that whatever I may say on this head, is my own experience of more than twelve years. I shall attempt to prove my positions. First, negatively, by showing which is not the best mode of rearing cattle; and I make the assertion, that it is not best to let the calf draw the milk from the cow, in the manner usually practised by the majority of our farmers, to keep the calf in a small pen and suffer it to draw part of the milk, night and morning, in order to "bring the cow up." This would do for three or four weeks, when the calf is young; but it would soon require something more than this milk, or if the cow is a very good one, and the calf has plenty of milk, it will soon grow so strong, that it can be removed from the cow only with great difficulty and by "hard knocks," which are not particluarly adapted to further its growth. If this method is resorted to, viz: to let the calf draw the milk from the cow, which I will admit ought to be as good a way as any, being nature's own and wise plan, it ought to be done in a rational manner, and in my humble opinion something like this: The coming in of the cows should be regulated to occur in early spring. There should be a small but good pasture convenient, to receive the calves; in this pasture there should be a good and dry shed, which should be of easy access for the calves to shelter from cold spring rains; the calves should be permitted to draw the milk, and all the milk the cows give (if they can do so,) three times a day, and care should be taken to remove the cows as soon as milked clean. From twelve to sixteen weeks is long enough for the calf to suck; then the cow ought to be dried up and the calf suffered to help itself. Where any of the milk is wanted for family use, or where it is an object to have milk and butter plenty the year round, where good milkers are sought, and dairying is followed at all, this mode of raising cattle had better not be pursued. Second. It is not wise, nor a good way of raising calves, to pursue the way of many of our farmers, who "feed" their calves, (or say they do) when they are literally starved. The calves are allowed a little new milk for a week or ten days, then they receive skimmed or sour milk, and perhaps are turned in the highway to "pick their living," and hard picking it is, the most of the time. In this way they are suffered to live (if they can) till late in the autumn; then they are turned to a straw pile, and still live if they can, or die if they must. A calf so raised, even if it chance to winter, is never thrifty, and will be a runted thing always. There is yet another method pursued by some; that is, turning cows and calves together, and let the calf draw milk when it pleases; this, in my estimation, is the sure ruin of the cow. In our artificial way of breeding cows, they give more milk than they naturally would in a wild state. The often drawing of the calf makes it fat, but the cow poor, and as the calf grows older and stronger, the poor cow is knocked and thumped about until she is scarcely able to keep herself on her feet, and being so much reduced, she will not take the bull in proper time, and usually the calf sucks until it is nearly two years old; and I have even seen a three year old steer force a cow which was not his dam, to hold still until he had milked her clean. This latter mode, although often followed, is the poorest of all. Such cows are of no account |